Limitless Cultivation: I Can Master Every Profession!

.

The sight of Zhu Rong stepping forward, and of her master actually giving him the space to do so, was something she had never expected to see.

She had a feeling her master had come here for something that concerned him, and when she heard it was about that object she had been entrusted with to keep safe here centuries ago, she thought perhaps she was overthinking it.

But now it seemed that all of that was wrong.

She was even tempted to slap herself to see if she was hallucinating or something, but it was clear that what was happening before her eyes was real.

She quickly shifted her gaze toward her master, who was standing on the side waiting, and after a moment of hesitation finally said,

"Master, is it really fine for him to take it?" she asked, her voice full of clear hesitation and doubt.

Hearing her words, Yuan Lan gave her a calm glance before shrugging and replying nonchalantly,

"Well, I don't see why not. After all, that object belongs to him," she said before ignoring her once again.

Eh?

Once again, Huo Lian felt she must have misheard, that this couldn't possibly be real.

If before she had been tempted to slap herself, now she was nearly about to actually do it, just to confirm that everything she was seeing and hearing was indeed happening.

That object belongs to him?

How could something like that even be possible in the first place?

That thing was several centuries old, and how old could he even be?

Twenty, at most?

Was there something she was missing in all this?

While her confusion deepened, Zhu Rong, who had approached the altar, wasted no time and immediately reached his hand forward to grab the object in front of him.

At first glance, it was unrecognizable, wrapped in a layer of light, but as soon as it came into contact with Zhu Rong's fingers, it trembled slightly before a few symbols upon it began to glow, only to vanish soon after.

Once that happened, the luminous layer began to fade as well, and as it disappeared, the glow subsided rapidly, revealing nothing but a ring, made of a purplish metal, with delicate golden engravings upon it, simple yet refined in appearance.

The ring, once released from the sphere, did not fall onto the small cushion placed on the altar where the sphere had rested.

Instead, it remained suspended in the air, rotating slightly before stabilizing itself, as if it possessed its own will, and slowly drifted toward Zhu Rong.

It was clear that this was a Very high grade spiritual object , and what it was doing now was verifying the identity of the person standing before it.

Zhu Rong, seeing the ring approaching him, bit his thumb, drawing a drop of blood immediately.

If he had tried to do something like that with a normal needle, it would have bent or broken, for his skin was harder than metal, having already surpassed the mortal limits and reached the Spirit Realm.

At this point, there were truly very few things in this plane of existence that could even leave a cut on him, and such things were not easily found.

The wound on his thumb closed immediatly, healing in the blink of an eye.

Zhu Rong, however, took advantage of that brief instant to extract a small drop of blood, which he made float toward the ring.

High grade spiritual items required protective mechanisms, especially storage ones like this.

If their creator had placed a recognition system upon them, then only the owner could open them.

If anyone attempted to force or destroy the protective rune formation inscribed upon them, the ring would self destruct, taking with it everything stored inside.

Zhu Rong's blood was just a small droplet, yet when it touched the ring, it was immediately absorbed.

The various golden engravings upon it shimmered briefly before shifting from a golden hue to a warmer, reddish tone.

As that happened, the ring glowed, then twirled once before flying directly toward Zhu Rong's finger, slipping itself onto his middle finger.

It shone for a moment, as if it had found its rightful place, before dimming slowly, leaving behind only the refined glow of the delicate engravings etched upon its surface.

Zhu Rong nodded inwardly, as if confirming something to himself, before turning toward the two women behind him and saying,

"Alright, we can go now."

He steped down from the small altar platform, and under Huo Lian's still bewildered and astonished gaze, he and Yuan Lan began walking toward the exit.

She, who had been standing there frozen, processing everything, snapped out of her daze and quickly followed after them.

Had it been someone else, she would have already thrown herself at him to beat him up for daring to take away something so precious, even though she still didn't know what exactly was inside that ring,

but her master had already told her that the object belonged to him. And though she couldn't understand why she said that, those words were more than enough as confirmation that she was to let him take it.

Thus, Huo Lian knew there was nothing more she could do.

The ring in question was something that Zhu Rong's past self had left behind.

It had been personally forged by him, and it was a Heaven grade artifact.

He had used it long ago to store many of his important possessions, not wealth, but cultivation resources and other items.

Among them were his spoils of war, precious artifacts, and high level cultivation materials that ordinary cultivators, or even most powerful ones, could only dream of seeing.

Some of those things were items that no one would ever even dream of laying eyes on, much less using in their lifetime. And it was precisely one of those items that Zhu Rong had come here to retrieve.

Zhu Rong and Yuan Lan, once outside, wasted no time and immediately departed for their next destination.

Yuan Lan, just as she had appeared, vanished once again, turning into a streak of light that disappeared into Zhu Rong's body.

And as for the latter, after offering the Pavilion Master a faint nod, he took a step forward, and vanished from the spot.

***

The sun shone high above, its afternoon intensity bearing down upon the city.

There, to the south of the Qiyan city center, lay a wide open space where the manor of the Zhu family stood, vast and ancient.

Its walls still bore the traces of a glorious past, yet also small signs of decay, reflecting the condition of the family residing within.

It was large, with part of its space dedicated to a main building surrounded by several smaller ones, both residential, for servants and others, and for various other purposes.

Then there were gardens and open grounds for training, some at the center within the manor's walls, others near the corners.

Within them, various figures, young and old, could be seen training.

Children of eight or ten years moved with imperfect harmony, practicing martial forms under the watchful eyes of elder instructors.

Others, older, sat in deep meditation upon the designated platforms.

Beyond the courtyards, in one of the inner halls, somewhere between a study and an archive, sat Zhu Shen, the first son of the current patriarch and his future successor, intent on examining a pile of scrolls and documents.

The morning had started well for him, with few matters to take care of, but that serenity didn't last long, as a small chaos erupted throughout the city.

Since then, he had received several important communications, and being himself at the peak of the fifth stage, he could tell that the event that had occurred was no trivial matter.

Gradually, as the family members he had sent out returned, he began to form an idea of what had happened.

It was soon confirmed that the area struck by the fury of the heavens was a place he knew very well,

and how could he not? after all he had been there not too long ago.

It was the same place where the portal to the secret realm had opened, the very event that had sent the entire city into a frenzy.

He himself, along with other strong members of his family, had gone there in search of fortune and treasures.

But the heavens had been cruel to him, and to everyone else who had joined that expedition, and soon enough, it had turned into a nightmare for all.

He himself, who had entered with his son and others, had found himself several times on the verge of being killed by the creatures within,

especially the being that had appeared at the end, whose mere presence had almost killed everyone there, and indeed nearly succeeded.

If it hadn't been for the sudden appearance of a powerful existence that intervened and pulled them out of the secret realm, probably no one would have survived that expedition, neither he nor his son.

Even now, that memory made his heart tremble slightly, and yet, among the fear and unease, there was also a faint sense of gratitude.

That expedition, disastrous as it was, had also brought unexpected consequences.

After he had been ejected from the secret realm and regained consciousness, looking at the other groups, he discovered that they had all suffered considerable casualties and injuries.

But among them, one group in particular remained etched in his mind, the academy's group.

Among those who had gone missing that day from that group was a certain person in particular,

Zhu Rong.